Sedrick Ellis tells the Bears he’s retiring

Ellis did not report to training camp and instead told the Bears he intents to retire from the NFL, the team announced on Thursday.

The news comes as a surprise: Ellis is only 28 years old and has no known health concerns. Last year he started all 16 games for the Saints. This year he was scheduled to earn $1 million on a one-year contract.

After a college career at USC in which he earned a Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year award and recognition as an All-American, Ellis was the seventh overall pick in the 2008 NFL draft. He played out the full five years of his rookie contract, which was worth more than $30 million. If he has spent his money wisely, he’ll never need to work another day in his life. But it’s surprising, given that he just signed with a new team and still has plenty of good football left in him, that he wants to walk away.

Another USC washout under Pete Carroll’s “progam”. Seems like he’s running the same “program” in Seattle. Pats take a lot of heat for passing on CMatthews, which was a mistake, but I think that’s why. Mathews was a 180 lb freshman walk on, whos father knew the NFL ropes. Connect the dots.

During their glory years under carroll, did any of those players work out? I can’t think of one. Polamalu was leaving when he got there. Carson Palmer, the benchmark for the recent USC QBs, has pretty much had a mediocre career, and again, he was on his way out the door when they got there. Maybe it was a development thing? Quite puzzling to say the least considering the kinds of athletes they got during that run.

Although you can’t blame him, he still has his health but for how long if he continued to play. My only problem with this is why didn’t he retire 5 months ago? Imo its pretty sorry to sign with a new team and then retire right when training camp begins.

I’m actually surprised this doesn’t happen more often. Football is a taxing profession physically (perhaps the most taxing especially for D-Lineman). If it were me, which it’s not, and I was half way competent with my money, I hit my big payday, finish it out, and then go fishing for life….